1.
When I was at the University of California at Berkeley, I went to some classes that must have had more than four hundred students in them. I almost always sat in the far back of the auditorium so I could read the newspaper. I remember that I stayed late one day to ask the professor a question, and when I got up to him, all I could think to myself was, 'So this is what the professor looks like.
Stephan Pastis
2.
Whenever I see people with their collars up, I'm tempted to point it out to them like you would for someone who has a food stain on their shirt or food in their teeth, as if to say, 'Your fashion sense is so offensive I'm assuming it's some sort of accident you'll want to fix.
Stephan Pastis
3.
Brits have a better sense of humor in most ways. It's darker, more cutting.
Stephan Pastis
4.
When you can't draw chameleons and you can't draw blenders, it's a bad idea to write strips where chameleons become blenders.
Stephan Pastis
5.
I recently forced myself to read a book on quantum physics, just to try and learn something new. I was confused by the middle of the first sentence and it all went downhill from there. The only thing I can remember learning is that a parallel universe can theoretically be contained on the head of a needle. I don't really know what that means, but I am now more careful handling needles.
Stephan Pastis
6.
If somebody is not on the same page with me humor wise, I can't give them that.
Stephan Pastis
7.
I seem to be able to get away with pun strips if I add a panel at the end where I somehow indicate that I know it's a bad pun.
Stephan Pastis
8.
It's best to love your family as you would a Siberian tiger-from a distance, preferably separated by bars.
Stephan Pastis
9.
I'm very harsh on real estate agents. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because of how the call every small house 'charming' and every run-down house a 'great fixer-upper'. Just once, I'd like them to show me a house and declare, 'This one's a piece of crap'.
Stephan Pastis
10.
Sticking to my schedule, Ive gotten over seven months ahead, which allowed me to write a Pearls Before Swine movie script for the big screen.
Stephan Pastis
11.
I was a lawyer for 10 years, and when youre in law, things really have to get done, or somebody sues you. Its a great trick.
Stephan Pastis
12.
Most poetry just confounds me. I really want to like it, but I can't help thinking it's a hoax. (p. 24)
Stephan Pastis
13.
If you put me in South Park, that audience is going to fall asleep in five minutes.
Stephan Pastis
14.
The writing is done on the computer, and the drawing is done by hand. I write, write, write, then I hit the illustration.
Stephan Pastis
15.
A stand-up comedian faces the audiences and gets their immediate feedback. I hide behind the comic strip, and unless people write to me, I dont know what they think.
Stephan Pastis
16.
The phrase 'I just turn on my monkey and it makes me feel good' sounds very dirty, but I can't explain why. It's great to try to use expressions like that on the comics page. People want to complain but they can't, because they can't figure out quite what they should be complaining about.
Stephan Pastis
17.
If you're from a certain generation, you basically learn to read with 'Peanuts.' It's sort of the template for the modern strip. Its influence ceased to be noticed because it's in everything.
Stephan Pastis
18.
I don't like drawing characters facing right. If I tried to do that at a book signing, I'd have to pencil it first.
Stephan Pastis
19.
Basically, I learned to read by reading 'Peanuts,' just wanting to know what they were saying.
Stephan Pastis
20.
You can write a little and can draw a little, but there's necessarily a limitation on both in a comic strip, since it appears in such a tiny space.
Stephan Pastis
21.
We need more cartoonists to truly retire when they retire, and not run repeats.
Stephan Pastis
22.
Repeats are the absolute soul-crushing killers of the comics page.
Stephan Pastis
23.
When I say 'friends,' I use that term loosely, as I don't actually have any.
Stephan Pastis
24.
My wife Staci made me go to a wedding last weekend...If it weren’t for her, I’d be happy.
Stephan Pastis
25.
If a restaurant offers crayons, I always take them and color throughout the meal. It beats talking to the people I came to dinner with.
Stephan Pastis